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Democracy On Trial 
In the World War 

by 
WILLIAM BACKUS GUITTEAU 

Superintendent of Schools 
TOLEDO, OHIO 




Press of 

The Newell B. Newton Compan 

1918 



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Copyright. 1918 
by 

H i Ilium Backus Guilt rau 

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APR - i 1918 

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Democracy On Trial 
In the World War 

by 
WILLIAM BACKUS GUITTEAU 

Superintendent of Schools 
TOLEDO, OHIO 




Press of 

The Newell B. Newton Company 

1918 









Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/democracyontrialOOguit 



Democracy on Trial In the World War 

By WILLIAM BACKUS GUITTEAU 

Superintendent of Schools, Toledo, Ohio 

The Rise of Modern Germany. At the Hague Conference 
of 1907, one power had voted against every proposal to re- 
duce the size of Europe's great armies and navies. That 
power was the German Empire, voicing the will of Prussia, 
its largest and most powerful state. Prussia owed its own 
existence largely to successful wars, and the German Em- 
pire owed its existence to Prussia. From a second-rate 
power in 1860, Prussia rose under Bismarck's policy of 
"blood and iron" to become the strongest military force in 
Europe. Bismarck accomplished this result by means of a 
military system which compelled every man in the country 
to serve a certain number of years in the army, and to be 
ready at a moment's notice to join his regiment if there 
came a call to war. With a great military machine fully 
organized and equipped, Bismarck was ready for the aggres- 
sive wars by which he meant to make Prussia the acknowl- 
edged leader of Germany. Aided by Austria, Prussia in 
1864 tore from Denmark the provinces of Schleswig-Hol- 
stein; next Austria herself was crushed by Prussia, and 
ousted from the German Confederation (1866) ; and finally 
France was vanquished, robbed of two of her richest prov- 
inces, and compelled to pay a huge war indemnity as the 
price of peace. While his victorious armies were laying 
siege to Paris, the king of Prussia was crowned German 
Emperor in the ancient palace of the French kings at Ver- 
sailles (1871). 

Out of these three successful wars, modern Germany 
emerged with boundaries greatly enlarged, and with an im- 
plicit belief in war and military force as the best means of 



6 DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 

advancing her national power. Bismarck's policy appeared 
fully vindicated, although it was a policy of fraud and trick- 
ery as well as of blood and iron. Bismarck had muzzled 
the press of Prussia, bullied its parliament, and overridden 
the will of its people; but Germany readily forgave his 
methods in view of the great material gains from his policy. 
The constitution of the new empire gave the German peo- 
ple almost no political power, for the Reichstag or Parlia- 
ment was only a great debating society, the real rulers be- 
ing the Emperor and the Prussian military leaders. 

The German Attitude Toward War. In the half century 
that followed the Franco-Prussian War, the German people 
patiently endured the burden of immense standing armies 
and the expenditures for a greater navy. They accepted 
this situation because they had been carefully educated to 
look upon war as something inevitable, as necessary to the 
future greatness of Germany. The schools throughout the 
empire mutilated the facts of history and geography to 
teach the children of Germany that France was a nation of 
weaklings, Russia a nation of slaves; that most of the peo- 
ples of Europe were descended from Germans, and should 
be united within the empire; and finally that Germany 
must have larger boundaries, a result which could only be 
accomplished by a victorious war. The powerful military 
leaders, aided by the German press, preached the doctrine 
that war is a necessity, "an ordinance of God for the weed- 
ing out of weak and incompetent individuals and States." 1 
Thus modern Germany came to believe that a nation is 
not great unless it has military power; and this power gives 
it the right to deal with weaker nations as it chooses. If a 
weaker people possesses anything that the rulers of a 
stronger people want, those rulers need only plead "mili- 
tary necessity," and no law of man or God may stay them 
from working their will. "Might makes right," asserts the 
German militarist, "and the dispute as to what is right is 
to be decided by war." 

1 Bernhardt Germany and The Next War, pp. 18, 23. 



DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 7 

Germany's Curious Notion of Race Superiority. Along 
with this doctrine that might makes right, that war is "a 
beautiful and holy thing," 2 the Germans were taught an- 
other curious theory. This was that the German race is a 
race of superior beings as compared with other peoples; 
that its civilization (Kultur) is superior to all other civiliza- 
tions; and hence that it is the duty of Germany to civilize 
and Germanize the world! "God has called us to civilize 
the world," declared Emperor William II.; "we are the 
missionaries of human progress." It is not strange that 
this people, f eeling themselves to be superior beings, came 
to believe that Germany did not possess the colonies, the 
commerce, and the influence which such a superior nation 
ought to have. "It is only by relying on our good German 
sword that we can hope to conquer that place in the sun 

which rightly belongs to us Till the world comes to 

an end, the ultimate decision must rest with the sword." 2 

Germany's Dream of World Empire. Inspired by these 
ideals, the military party which rules Germany had for 
many years planned an aggressive war which should give 
Germany her place as the foremost world power. Not con- 
tent with the provinces of Alsace-Lorraine which she had 
wrested from France in 1871, Germany planned in this 
new war to steal the northeastern portion of France and to 
annex the whole of Belgium. This would give her immense 
fields of coal and iron ore, so necessary for industry, and 
especially for the manufacture of armaments; while the 
seizure of the Channel ports would enable Germany to hold 
a dagger at the heart of England. For Britain, with her 
world empire, was the enemy which Germany expected to 
attack eventually, although she hoped this would be in a 
later war, after France and Russia were crushed. For 
was not England, a nation of tradespeople, among whom 
war was not glorified, already becoming decrepit? Was 

1 Jung-Deutschland, official organ of Young- Germany, October, 1913. 

2 Statement of the German Crown Prince, in Introduction to Ger- 
many in Arms. 



8 DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 

she not a "colossus with feet of clay," whose world empire 
would crumble before the might of the rising power in 
Central Europe? So the favorite toast among German of- 
ficers was to "der Tag", the day in which the British fleet 
should be beaten, and London occupied by a victorious Ger- 
man army. And after Britain, then America, peace-loving, 
idealistic, defenseless America, was to be taken in hand, and 
taught her proper and subordinate place in a world ruled 
by German power. "I shall tolerate no more nonsense from 
America after this war!" said Emperor William to our Am- 
bassador Gerard, when President Wilson protested against 
the murder of American citizens on the high seas. 

The Spoils of a Successful War. On her eastern frontier, 
Germany's spoils of war were to be Russia's Baltic prov- 
inces, together with the territory to the southward; while 
Russian Poland was to become a vassal German state. A 
victorious Germany would then, as a matter of course, 
dominate Austria-Hungary, Turkey, the Balkan states, and 
Asia Minor, and thus form a great Middle Europe Empire 
extending from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf. Nor 
did Germany intend to content herself with dominion over 
the continent of Europe. The French and Belgian colonies 
in Africa were to be seized, for the simple reason that Ger- 
many had few colonies, and wanted more. Even free 
America was sooner or later to be brought under the do- 
minion of the new world empire. Using the German colony 
in southern Brazil as a base of military operations, all the 
valuable portion of South America was to be brought under 
German rule. A power which treated its solemn promise to 
observe the neutrality of Belgium as a mere "scrap of 
paper" could hardly be expected to regard our Monroe 
Doctrine seriously. If the United States dared to resist, we 
had the Kaiser's own word for it that he would tolerate no 
nonsense from us. German armies would occupy our great 
coast cities, and the payment of a huge war indemnity 
would teach us proper respect for German "Kultur". 



DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 9 

This ambitious program was not the dream of a few 
German visionaries or jingoes. It was an actual plan, care- 
fully worked out in detail by the war-mad clique which 
rules Germany. The German people, it is true, were not 
consulted in the matter; there was no need to consult them, 
for Germany is not ruled by her people, but by the Kaiser, 
supported by the military leaders and the Prussian aristo- 
cracy. So audacious and so insolent was this German plan 
of world power that it startles our belief; yet in the fate- 
ful year of 1914 it came near to realization. "Now strikes 
the hour for Germany's rising power," wrote one of her 
editors 1 as the German armies were launched across neutral 
Belgium to strike France at a point where she would not 
expect attack. Only the heroic resistance of the little Bel- 
gian army, the defeat of the German hordes by France in 
the battle of the Marne, and England's unbroken power on 
the sea, prevented Germany's dream of world empire from 
becoming an accomplished fact. 

Germany's Allies and Her Military Preparations. With- 
in two years after hostilities began, thirty-eight million men 
were bearing arms in the most terrible war of the world's 
history. On the side of Germany were three of the central 
European countries, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Tur- 
key. Allied with France, England and Russia in the strug- 
gle against world despotism were Japan, Italy, Belgium, 
Portugal, Servia and Rumania. 

From the outset, Germany had several advantages over 
her opponents. For fifty years she had been making ready 
for war, while England, France, and Russia were almost 
wholly unprepared. Germany's immense armies were fully 
trained and equipped; she had a vast supply of ammuni- 
tion, machine guns, and heavy cannon, far exceeding that 
which all the rest of the world could assemble; she was 
ready with her poison gas shells, the use of which was for- 



1 These are the words of Maximilian Harden, editor of Die Zuknnft, 
and supposed to be a German Liberal. 



10 DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 

bidden by all the rules of civilized warfare; she had her 
immense Zeppelins to hurl bombs upon unfortified cities, 
and her submarines for the murder of men, women, and 
children on the high seas. Along the Belgian frontier, Ger- 
many had built a complete system of railways for the quick 
invasion of Belgium and France; on her eastern frontier, a 
similar system was ready to carry her troops into Russia. 
In the year 1913, Germany increased the peace strength of 
her army to 900,000 men, and made ready to strike. The 
year 1914 found Germany as fully prepared for hostilities 
as the well-armed highwayman who approaches his victim 
in the dark. Like the highwayman, she chose the favorable 
moment for the assault; again like him, she struck from 
behind. By invading little Belgium, a country which she 
had solemnly promised to respect as neutral, Germany was 
able to entrench her armies on French soil before the Allies 
could make an effectual resistance. 

The United States Faces the Problems of Neutrality. 
Germany began her invasion of Belgium and France in 
August, 1914, and for two years and eight months the 
United States maintained an attitude of strict neutrality be- 
tween the warring powers. With all of the great powers of 
Europe at war, President Wilson's position was a difficult 
one. The chief trouble, as during the Napoleonic wars, was 
with regard to our trade on the ocean. The United States 
tried to maintain the right of our citizens to trade with the 
countries at war, subject to the rules of international law. 
Under these rules, our ships had a right to the freedom of 
the seas provided they did not carry contraband of war, or 
attempt to break an established blockade. Even if they 
did either of these things, the penalty was seizure of the 
ship only, while the crew must be given an opportunity to 
save their lives. But from the outset, Germany disregarded 
international law on the ocean just as she had done on land 
by invading neutral Belgium. Her submarines sank several 
of our merchant ships without any regard for the safety 
of their crews. 



DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 11 

Germany Murders Our Citizens on the High Seas. Final- 
ly, on May 7, 1915, a German submarine torpedoed the un- 
armed British liner Lusitania without warning. Twelve 
hundred men, women, and children were drowned, includ- 
ing one hundred and fourteen Americans. Our citizens 
were wholly within their rights in taking passage on the 
Lusitania, and the sinking of the steamer without giving its 
passengers and crew an opportunity to save their lives was 
not war, but murder. Yet the German government struck 
medals to commemorate this event, and gave only evasive 
answers to our protests. Even after the Lusitania outrage, 
President Wilson made every effort to avoid war, but Ger- 
many merely concluded that our people were too cowardly 
to fight, and continued her policy of terrorizing on the 
high seas. About one year later, the sinking of the unarmed 
steamer Sussex without warning brought on a new crisis 
(March 24, 1916) . The United States now made an impera- 
tive demand that Germany should conduct her submarine 
campaign in accordance with international law by warning 
ships before sinking them, and by placing their passengers 
and crews in safety. Germany made a conditional agree- 
ment to do this; later events proved that she had no inten- 
tion of keeping her promise, but only wanted time to build 
more submarines. 

German Intrigues Against the United States. Meantime, 
the German government carried on numberless intrigues in 
the United States, intrigues directed by her official repre- 
sentatives at Washington. She filled our country with 
spies; her agents placed bombs in merchant vessels about 
to sail from our ports; they stirred up strikes among our 
laborers, set fire to our munition factories, and bribed 
American writers and lecturers to oppose war with Ger- 
many even at the cost of our national self-respect. Plan- 
ning to bring on war between Mexico and the United States, 
Germany spent $600,000 on the Mexican revolutionists. 
Later, her foreign minister Zimmerman sent a dispatch to 



12 DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 

Mexico urging that country to ally herself with Germany 
against the United States, and try to draw in Japan on her 
side; by way of reward, Mexico was to receive Texas, Ari- 
zona, and New Mexico. But the crowning insolence of 
German diplomacy was the cabled dispatch which Ambas- 
sador Bernstorff sent from Washington to his government 
at Berlin. He asked to be given authority to expend $50,000 
"in order, as on former occasions, to influence Congress 
through the organization you know of." 

Our Country Decides to Fight for Democracy. On the 
last day of January, 1917, the German ambassador handed 
to our Secretary of State Lansing a note announcing the in- 
tention of Germany to adopt a ruthless submarine policy on 
a vast scale. After February 1, German submarines would 
endeavor to sink, without warning, every vessel that tried 
to approach either the ports of Great Britain or Ireland, 
or the western coast of Europe, or any of the ports con- 
trolled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediter- 
ranean. This was a direct challenge to the United States; 
and President Wilson made the only possible answer by 
handing the German ambassador his passports, thereby 
severing relations with a government which had repeatedly 
shown its bad faith. 

Following her new decree of ruthlessness, Germany sank 
eight more American ships. In all, two hundred and 
twenty-six American citizens, many of them women and 
children, had now lost their lives by the action of German 
submarines. Germany's warfare against commerce had 
become, as President Wilson said, a warfare against man- 
kind; and on April 2, 1917, he appeared before Congress to 
deliver his famous war message. The President recounted 
the outrages which Germany had committed against the 
lives and property of our citizens, and referred to her false 
promises made only to be broken. "We will not choose the 
path of submission," he declared, "and suffer the most 
sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or 



DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 13 

violated." President Wilson solemnly advised Congress to 
accept the state of war which Germany had forced upon 
the people of the United States. "It is a fearful thing to 
lead this great, peaceful people into war, into the most ter- 
rible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming 
to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than 
peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have al- 
ways carried nearest our hearts — for democracy, for the 
right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in 
their own Governments, for the rights and liberties of small 
nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a con- 
cert of free people as shall bring peace and safety to all 
nations, and make the world itself at last free." 

Why War Was Our Only Recourse. A few days after the 
President's message, Congress adopted a resolution that a 
state of war existed between the United States and Ger- 
many (April 6, 1917). Three reasons made this decision 
imperative: 

(1) Because of the renewal by Germany of her sub- 
marine warfare in a more violent form than ever before, re- 
sulting in the loss of American lives and property on the 
high seas. As in the War of 1812, the United States was 
called upon to defend the principle that the deck of an 
American ship is the same as American soil, and that the 
flag which floats over the ship protects the lives of the men 
beneath it. 

(2) Because of the menace to the Monroe Doctrine and 
to our own independence, resulting from the ambitions of 
a war-mad Germany. If we had stayed out of the war, 
the Monroe Doctrine would have become an empty threat 
before a victorious Germany. 

(3) Because the European war had become a conflict 
between democratic nations on the one hand, and autocratic 
nations on the other. Germany had trampled under foot 
the law of nations; an international desperado, she threat- 
ened the freedom of the world, opposing her policy of 



14 DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 

might and force against the principles of right and human- 
ity. "The world," as President Wilson said, "must be made 
safe for democracy." Little Belgium had a right to its 
own national life, the French people had a right to live in 
peace, American citizens had a right to travel on the ocean 
highways of the world, free from the haunting terror of 
German ruthlessness. 

Conscripting a National Army. As in the case of all our 
previous wars, the United States was almost wholly unpre- 
pared in April, 1917. This was especially true of our army, 
which was so small and so poorly equipped that Germany 
looked upon it with contempt. Our regular army num- 
bered only about 150,000 men, and we had no well-trained 
reserves, for our people had never favored universal mili- 
tary training. We had scarcely enough uniforms even for 
this small force, while there was a sad lack of rifles, ma- 
chine guns, artillery, airships, and all the instruments of 
modern warfare. Congress and the President now set earn- 
estly at work to organize the nation for war, and within a 
year great results were achieved. In May, 1917, Congress 
passed a law which created a new national army, to be 
chosen by draft out of all the able-bodied men in the United 
States between the ages of twenty-one and thirty years, in- 
clusive. In the following June, 9,650,000 young men pre- 
sented themselves for registration for war service; it was 
decided that the first instalment to be called out in 1917 
should number 687,000, and that about the same number 
should be called in the year 1918. 

Nearly all of these men were without military training; 
so it was necessary to establish a number of immense camps 
where the men drafted for the National Army could be as- 
sembled, and receive some training for the stern work ahead 
of them. Within a few months, sixteen cantonments, or 
great army camps, were constructed at different points 
throughout the United States. Each cantonment was really 
a complete city by itself, including nearly a thousand dif- 



DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 15 

ferent buildings, with a total capacity of forty thousand 
men. The entire National Guard was also called out, re- 
cruited to its war strength of 450,000 men, and sent into 
great tented camps. The regular army was increased by 
voluntary enlistment to 360,000 men; and by the close of 
the year 1917, nearly 1,500,000 soldiers were bearing arms 
for the United States. 

Expansion of the Navy. To protect our troops while 
crossing the ocean, and to aid in hunting down the enemy's 
submarines, the navy was greatly strengthened. The num- 
ber of men in the Navy and Marine Corps was increased to 
250,000; while every battleship and cruiser was fully 
manned, and thousands of expert gunners were placed on 
board American merchantmen. Contracts were let for the 
construction of hundreds of naval vessels of every type, 
from superdreadnaughts to submarine chasers. Many pri- 
vately owned vessels, yachts, and fast motor boats were 
taken over by the government and transformed into patrol 
boats, submarine chasers, and mine sweepers. The German 
merchant ships and liners which had taken refuge in Ameri- 
can ports were seized and made ready for the transporta- 
tion of troops and supplies. Within a month after war was 
declared, United States destroyers and battleships were in 
European waters, prepared to cooperate with the fleets of 
Great Britain and France. "When will you be ready for 
business?" asked the British commander as our flotilla ar- 
rived off the British shores on May 4. "We can start at 
once," replied the American admiral. "We made prepara- 
tions on the way over. That is why we are ready." 

American Industry Organized for War. American in- 
dustry, no less than the army and navy, had to be reorgan- 
ized to meet the immense demands made upon it for guns, 
ammunition, airplanes, clothing, shoes, and above all else, 
for ships and food supplies. Modern warfare is more a 
problem of industry than of military tactics, and the great 
industrial strength of the United States was soon welded 



16 DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 

into a vast war machine. Congress appropriated $640,000,- 
000 for the building of airplanes under the direction of the 
Aircraft Production Board, of which Howard E. Coffin was 
chairman. Scores of factories were turned from normal 
production to specialized aircraft work. For example, type- 
writer and cash register factories were called upon to manu- 
facture the nuts, bolts, and small metal parts needed; furni- 
ture factories had to learn the difficult art of manufacturing 
wings of spruce, covered with linen; while motorcar and 
munition factories turned out the engines themselves. It 
was planned to build twenty thousand of these famous 
"Liberty 1 Motors" during, the first year of the war; at the 
same time, our arsenals, armories, and munition factories 
were called upon to produce millions of rifles, and hun- 
dreds of thousands of machine guns. 

Shipbuilding Becomes a Supreme Need. To transport an 
army of more than a million men to France, and keep them 
supplied with food and munitions of war, called for a great 
number of ships. When we entered the war, German sub- 
marines were destroying our vessels and those of our allies 
at the rate of 500,000 tons a month. Unless our shipyards 
could build many new ships and build them quickly, we 
could not hope to win the war. So Congress authorized 
the expenditure of over one billion dollars for the construc- 
tion of a great merchant fleet. Edward N. Hurley was 
made chairman of the Shipping Board which took charge 
of the work of construction. The problem of the Shipping 
Board was to build merchant vessels at the rate of 5,000,000 
tons a year, which was about twenty times our annual out- 
put before 1914. This meant that our steel mills had to 
roll plates on a scale hitherto unknown; our makers of boil- 
ers and turbine engines had to multiply their output by ten; 
existing shipyards must triple and quadruple their facilities 
almost over-night, and many new plants must be built. 
After all this was accomplished, there remained the most 
difficult problem of all, the question of labor. A new in- 



DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 17 

dustrial army of five hundred thousand men had to be cre- 
ated and taught the shipbuilding trades. 

The ships placed in commission in 1918 required the ser- 
vices of one hundred thousand seamen. The war found 
us as destitute of seamen as of shipbuilders, so it became 
necessary to establish a score of schools for training in sea- 
manship. Several large vessels were taken from the coast 
service and turned into huge training schools, where boys 
from the farms and from the great industrial cities learned 
the art of splicing ropes and making knots, the use of the 
compass, and the indispensable duties of the lookout and 
the watch. No less than our soldiers in France and our 
mechanics in the shipyards, these men helped to win the 
world war for democracy. 

The Problems of Food and Fuel. Besides providing food 
for our people at home and for our armies abroad, the 
United States had to send large supplies to her allies. So 
the American farmers were called upon to do their part by 
raising larger crops than ever before; and the people all 
over the country were urged to conserve food, to eat less 
meat, sugar, and wheat, in order that more of these com- 
modities might be sent to Europe. Herbert C. Hoover, who 
had been in charge of American relief work in Belgium, was 
placed at the head of the National Food Administration, 
with powers that practically made him a food dictator. 
Acting under his direction, State Food Commissions were 
established in each state, and local Commissions in each 
county. 

The country's supply of coal was taken in charge by the 
United States Fuel Commission, of which Harry A. Garfield 
was chairman. This body set prices for the different kinds 
of coal throughout the United States, and gave orders to 
the railroads concerning the transportation of coal. This 
was necessary in order that the nation's most important 
needs should be first supplied; above all, coal must reach 
the seaboard for ships about to sail abroad, and fuel must 



18 DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 

be supplied to the factories producing war materials. The 
task of transportation soon proved too much for the rail- 
roads of the country, operating under separate manage- 
ment. In spite of their efforts, an immense amount of 
freight could not be moved, and the whole eastern section 
of the country faced a fuel famine in the fall of 1917. In 
order to solve the transportation problem, the national gov- 
ernment finally took charge of all the railway lines of the 
country for the period of the war, Secretary McAdoo being 
appointed Director-General of Railroads. 

Financing the War. Immense sums of money, so large 
as to be almost beyond conception, were necessary for our 
vast military preparations. In the first year of the war, our 
total disbursements reached the startling figure of nineteen 
billions, or nearly five times the total cost of the Civil War. 
Of this immense sum, about one third was loaned to our 
Allies, the remainder being actual expenditures. To raise 
this revenue, the government resorted to taxation on a large 
scale, besides borrowing immense sums through the sale of 
bonds and other securities. The tax law passed on October 
3, 1917, was planned to produce $2,500,000,000 of revenue 
during the ensuing year. The most important items in 
point of size were the tax on excess business profits, the tax 
on incomes, and the taxes on liquors and tobacco. There 
were also taxes on theater tickets and club dues, on promis- 
sory notes, deeds, and mortages, on freight and express 
shipments, on telegrams, motion pictures, automobiles and 
tires, together with an increase in postage rates. 

Large as was the revenue raised by taxation, the govern- 
ment had to borrow nearly five times as much besides. 
This was done by selling bonds, war saving stamps and cer- 
tificates,, to be paid for out of future taxes. Our govern- 
ment wisely decided to sell its bonds directly to the people, 
through popular subscription; and in order that they might 
be within reach of all, bonds were offered in denominations 
as small as $50. Three great Liberty Loans, aggregating 



DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 19 

nearly twelve billion dollars, were made during the first 
year of the war. On each occasion the people subscribed 
for more bonds than were offered for sale. As President 
Wilson pointed out, even the unheard of money expendi- 
tures of the war would be worth while if they resulted in 
habits of thrift and self-denial among our people. So a new 
war-savings plan was arranged by which even the smallest 
investors could aid the government with their savings. 
Thrift stamps costing twenty-five cents each were sold, 
sixteen of which, with a few cents additional, could be ex- 
changed for a war-savings certificate. From this source the 
government expected to borrow two billion dollars during 
the first year of the war. 

Soldiers Insurance Instead of Pensions. At the beginning 
of the Civil War, our government promised pensions to dis- 
abled soldiers, and to the families of men who were killed 
in fighting for the Union. A better plan was worked out 
when the United States entered the great world war, by 
which the government provided insurance, instead of pen- 
sions, for men in the army and navy. A Bureau of War 
Risk Insurance in the Treasury Department insures the men 
at rates about equal to what they would pay in time of 
peace. The government also makes a family allowance for 
each man who has a wife or children dependent upon him, 
and provides a fixed compensation in case of his death or 
disability resulting from service. 

Disloyal Opposition to the War. Just as during the Civil 
War the Copperheads had opposed the Union cause, urging 
a complete surrender to secession, so in the crisis of 1917 
many so-called "pacifists" argued that the United States 
must not use military force to defend her rights as a nation. 
These peace-at-any-price men, many of whom were in Ger- 
man pay, said that no matter what outrages Germany com- 
mitted against us or against common humanity, we must 
tamely submit. Even when our government declared war, 
many of them continued their opposition. They held public 



20 DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 

meetings to endorse the position of a United States Senator 
who upheld Germany's cause in Congress; they sent out 
pamphlets urging resistance to the conscription law; they 
tried to stir up strikes among our workmen, and aided the 
criminal violence of the organization calling itself the 
"Industrial Workers of the World." A number of these 
traitors were finally brought to trial, and imprisoned for the 
period of the war. 

Telling the People About the War. To give the people 
reliable information about the war, an official Committee 
on Public Information was organized, with a well-known 
newspaper man, George Creel, as chairman. From its head- 
quarters at Washington, this committee published a daily 
Official Bulletin, gave out such military information as 
could properly be made public, prepared a series of patriotic 
films, organized an army of public speakers, and issued a 
series of pamphlets explaining the war and its causes. 

Work of the American Red Cross Society. The Ameri- 
can Red Cross Society worked hand in hand with the gov- 
ernment to bring relief and comforts to the men in the 
camps and on the battle fields. This organization provided 
our soldiers with hand-knitted sweaters, socks, and helmets, 
with comfort kits and Christmas parcels. Thousands of 
the best surgeons in the United States were enrolled for ser- 
vice with our armies abroad. The Red Cross furnished 
them with the best equipment and supplies, maintained an 
ambulance service manned by heroic drivers, built hospitals 
for the wounded men, and did everything possible to alle- 
viate the horrors of war. 

Germany Slaughters the Helpless, and Calls It War. The 
American Red Cross also brought its message of relief and 
mercy to the destitute people of Belgium and France. In 
these countries a great part of the population had been left 
homeless and destitute by the savagery of the German 
armies. For example, German shells and German ruthless- 
ness had razed one thousand French villages and towns so 



DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 21 

completely that often even the sites of the former build- 
ings could not be found. When the German armies made 
a slight retreat in the spring of 1917, they wantonly de- 
stroyed everything in their path which could support the 
population, even cutting down the fruit trees and poisoning 
the wells. The able-bodied men of northeastern France and 
throughout the whole of Belgium were sent to toil as slaves 
in German mines and on German farms. Here they were 
worked at top speed, and fed on a diet of bran and water 
until Germany's medical experts pronounced them of no 
more use to the Kaiser. They were then sent back to France 
to die, along with the old men and young children, whose 
age made them unserviceable to Prussian efficiency. 

.At the French towns of Evian and at Troche, the Ameri- 
can Red Cross established places of refuge where these poor 
people could rest and recuperate. Here thousands of hag- 
gard, hopeless little children and aged grandparents ar- 
rived during the summer and fall of 1917. So the Ameri- 
can Red Cross carried on a fight no less gallant than that of 
our armies, housing and feeding the families of stricken 
France and Belgium, saving the babies, battling against 
tuberculosis, and building up great hospitals. Some idea 
of their work, and a true picture of German "Kultur" may 
be had from one day's report of a Red Cross official : "There 
arrived last week at Evian, where the refugees from France 
and Belgium are received back into France, a train loaded 
with Belgian children. There were 680 of them — thin, sick- 
ly, from four to twelve years of age — children of men who 
refused to work for the Germans and of mothers who let 
their children go rather than to let them starve. They 
poured off the train, little ones clinging to the older ones, 
girls all crying, boys trying to cheer. They had come all 
the long way alone. On the platform were the Red Cross 
workers to meet them. Those children who could walk at 
all marched along crying, 'Meat, meat, we are going to have 
meat.' Their little clawlike hands were significant, but a 



22 DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 

doctor said, 'We have them in time; a few weeks of proper 
feeding and they will pull up.' Thirty per cent of the older 
refugees die the first month from exhaustion. The children 
can and must be saved." 

Our Soldiers Arrive in France. The advance guard of 
the American army — a division of regulars — reached 
France in the summer of 1917. Its leader was General 
John J. Pershing, who was to have the supreme command 
of our armies abroad. Other troops followed as rapidly 
as they could be equipped and ships found to transport 
them; for by the close of 1918 we planned to have one mil- 
lion men on the battle line in France. Two of our trans- 
ports were sunk early in the war, the Antilles on her home- 
ward trip bearing wounded soldiers, and the Tuscania off 
the Irish coast while carrying our troops to a French port. 
But most of our men were safely convoyed across the At- 
lantic by the American and British navies. 

France gave our soldiers a welcome which made every 
true American proud that we were at last repaying our debt 
to the land of Lafayette and Rochambeau, the France which 
had given its blood and treasure to make our country free. 
Now the young giant of the West was sending its best man- 
hood to fight with France and England and Italy to rescue 
Europe from the black despotism which hung over the 
whole world like a pall. For wherever liberty and self- 
government had developed, whether in France, or in Eng- 
land, or in the distant Orient, or in South America, there the 
Imperial German government had been its foe. Even in our 
own fair land, German autocracy had done its utmost to 
bring on disorder, to violate law, to estrange our people 
from their true allegiance, and to discredit democracy. 

The Battle Line of Democracy. On the western front of 
stricken France, the democracy of America is today fight- 
ing for its own existence, as well as for the democracy of 
Europe and the freedom of the world. But the battle line 
of democracy is not alone the four hundred miles of shell- 



DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN THE WORLD WAR 23 

swept trenches which wind their tortuous course from 
Switzerland to the Channel, the line red with the blood of 
men who have died that their children may be free. Dem- 
ocracy's battle line extends on beyond the Channel into the 
North Sea, where the grim, grey ships of Britain's mighty 
fleet keep up their silent vigil; it sweeps across the broad 
Atlantic to the seaboard ports where thousands of democra- 
cy's workers are riveting the plates on freedom's ships; 
westward across our great continent it runs, through cities 
whose factories are arming the soldiers of liberty, across 
the broad acres tilled by men who will never kneel to the 
Prussian war-lord. Before every home in our land democ- 
racy's battle line extends, for every American home is men- 
aced by the rule of brute force which Germany is trying to 
substitute for Christ's law of human brotherhood. And the 
war will not end until every man and woman, every boy 
and girl in America, is on the battle line, helping in the great 
fight for freedom and humanity, helping to make, for all 
time, a world safe for democracv. 



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